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Powering Phones, PCs Using Sugar
Nerval's Lobster writes "A team of researchers at Virginia Tech University have developed a battery with energy density an order of magnitude higher than lithium-ion batteries, while being almost endlessly rechargeable and biodegradable as well – because it's made of sugar. The battery is an enzymatic biofuel fuel cell – a type of fuel cell that uses a catalyst to strip molecules from molecules of a fuel material. Instead of using platinum or nickel for catalysts, however, biofuel cells use the catalysts made from enzymes similar to those used to break down and digest food in the body. Sugar is a good fuel material because it is energy dense, easy to obtain and transport, and so simple to biodegrade that almost anything biological can eat it. Sugar-based fuel cells aren't new, but existing designs use only a small number of enzymes that don't oxidize the sugar completely, meaning the resulting battery can hold only small amounts of energy that it releases slowly. A new design that uses 13 enzymes that can circulate freely to get better access to sugar molecules, however, is able to store energy at a density of 596 amp-hours per kilogram – an order of magnitude higher than lithium-ion batteries, according to Y.H. Percival Zhang, who studies biological systems engineering at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and College of Engineering at Virginia Tech. "Sugar is a perfect energy storage compound in nature," Zhang said in a statement announcing publication in Nature Communications of his paper describing the battery. "So it's only logical that we try to harness this natural power in an environmentally friendly way to produce a battery.""
Is not a unit of energy density, right?
"Sugar Sugar", one of the catchiest songs of the '60s. There's your radio spot right there.
Sweet!
Maltodextrin/glucose is a start, but wake me up when it can use sucrose.
There, get that song out of your head. :P
Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!")
So the free market will do what New York couldn't with taxes...drive the price of junk food up! Sweet.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Watt hours would be more helpful. Amp hours are meaningless without associated volts.
If this thing takes off, I can imagine in a few years the highly subsidized corn industry trying to sell high concentration fructose batteries, marketing them as "corn sugar fuel cells".
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
...the first commercial example. Until then I'll forget about this annoucement since a laboratory curiosity can take a long time to wind its way to commerical production if it ever makes it that far.
Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
You thought computer viruses were bad, wait until you have to deal with computer diabetes...
If the battery is based off enzymatic reactions won't temperature be a massive variable?
Maybe we can use High Fructose Corn Syrup for something other than making people obese.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Looking forward to when I can stop buying all these temporary phone chargers in convenience stores and just set up an IV!
And the computer I buy in 2020 will have an artificial circulatory system.
The linked abstract indicates around 0.25 mW/cm^2 (electron exchange membrane area). I'm not in any way a fuel cell expert, but that seems kind of low. Other fuel cells get from 0.2 to 2 Watts (not mW) /cm^2.
Sure, sugar has a high energy density, and this project uses it efficiently. But the batteries would be huge, to get reasonable power.
First you get the sugar
Then you get the power
Then you get the women.
God spoke to me
We already know that using ethanol is a big resource wasing flop
It is only resource wasting when made from corn. Ethanol from sugar cane is very sensible. But America has high tariffs on cane sugar, and the ethanol derived from it, to keep it from competing with corn. We will not have a sensible bio-fuels policy until the first presidential caucuses are moved out of Iowa.
This sounds like it would be prefect for implantable devices, that could leach off excess sugar in the blood.
With the high sugar content in western diets, one could both power implanted devices, plus prevent and treat diabetes by keeping blood sugar levels down to reasonable levels. It could act like an artificial pancreas, plus power a pacemaker, and maybe let you use a computer in your head. (Why isn't the NSA funding this, to stop thought crimes?)
Seems to me a much easier solution than forcing the political powerful processed food and fast food industries to cut back on sugar and syrup that are poisoning consumers.
So what are the disadvantages compared to a LIon battery? Does it need much maintenance (such as replacing the sugar)? Can you just plug it into the wall to charge like a normal rechargeable battery? How is the lifespan (cycles) and how quickly does it charge? Is there much vampire drain? How much power can it produce (W/kg)? Is the tech there yet or are there still obstacles to overcome? How cheaply can these be made?
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
It's not a battery. It's a fuel cell. The reaction is not internally reversible. Once all the accessible sugar has been oxidized, you need new sugar to refuel it. It doesn't recharge. Most likely you wouldn't bother to refuel it at all. You'd treat it as a disposable that you simply replace, like an alkaline cell. The quoted 596 Ah/kg compares very favorably to the 92 Ah/kg of an alkaline. Of course, that's comparing a theoretical charge density calculated from lab equipment to a product. By the time you squeeze the lab equipment into the AA or AAA form factor, you can expect that quoted 596 to suffer rather badly.
If its so great, why arent we using it right now. Given the non-renewable nature of metal batteries, this is sort of a godsend. I was reading one article about the sugar batteries and the developer of the batteries said "Well it won't hold its charge for the duration of shipping so people won't want it". This is the dumbest comment I have ever heard as most people would be fine with charging the batteries at initial use and most cell phones, people are already used to charging every few days anyway so this is clearly a non issue and no reason to keep the technology back. People in fact much prefer chargeable batteries that they can reuse rather than buying new ones, its also better for the environment.
"We already know that using ethanol is a big resource wasing flop, where do you think the ethanol comes from? Yeast and sugar. Going one step up isn't going to help,"
The energy cost of distillation would be avoided with a corn syrup fuel cell. That's worth quite a bit economically.
I remember reading stories about fuel cells for laptops (powered by alcohol) during the first year of Slashdot. And, supposedly, such cells were going to be sold for popular laptop models in "a few months." Twenty or so years later, I'm still waiting.
If a fuel cell idea is still completely, and totally, lab-bound, it is unlikely to become a product in the next 15-20 years or so, if previous progress on the subject is any guide.
0.8mW/cm^2 / 6mA/cm^2 = 0.1333... volts
A team of researchers at Virginia Tech University have developed a battery with energy density an order of magnitude higher than lithium-ion batteries
Bloody scientists. Why can't they just say "about ten times"?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
All we want to know is, how long does a five pound bag of sugar last?
(corollary question, will McDonald's et al stop putting those little sugar packs out for anyone to take?)
If anyone ever develops an energy source powered by vaporous product claims, we'll be good forever.
Charge is as much a measurement of quantity of electricity as volume is a measurements of a quantity of matter. The more coulombs of charge you have to pump through a wire, the more electricity you will have used, and the more work you will be able to do with it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The reaction is not internally reversible. Once all the accessible sugar has been oxidized, you need new sugar to refuel it. It doesn't recharge.
Where do you get that?
Though the detaied description of the reaction in The Fine Summary of the paper is in terms of the maltodextrin + oxygen -> water + carbon dioxide direction, there's no inherent reason that it can't be run backward with a power input, and the descriptive article speaks as if it can.
I've checked one part: The two enzymes at the start - which convert maltodextrin to glucose 6-phosphate (one stage of the cycle) are both reversable. If the other 11 are, also, you have a complete bidirectional system.
Drive power into the electrodes and you pump in hydrogen cracked from atmospheric water by the platinum catlyist on the atmospheric side of the dilectric membrane - the same catylist that disposes of the hydrogen by burning it with atmospheric oxygen to make water vapor when discharging. Also admit carbon dioxide by the same semi-permiable membrane that you use to dispose of it during discharging. Result: The enzymes synthesize maltodextrin solution from electricity and atmospheric carbon dioxide and water vapor, releasing atmospheric oxygen. It's much like a plant, with the chlorophyl replaced by a membrane, two electrodes, and a platinum catylist.
This brings up an interesting possibility: Electrosynthesys of food, to replace plants. If you can extract the maltodextrin solution without unacceptable loss of the enzymes you have a handy energy input for, say, bio-engineered bacterial synthesys of everything else you need - including replacements for the eventual loss or degredation of the 13 enzymes. Result: Complete drive of a working life support system from any source of electricity.
I can see the "plant rightist" movement already, taking the verse from Leslie Fish's "Fisher's Chant" literally:
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
1. it doesn't work
2. it can't be produced (= it can't get cheap enough)
or
3. someone has a deep interest in blocking it (think NiMH)
Or:
4. It's just been invented.
Jeez, guys. There's still some substantial engineering to do between finding a reaction that works and deploying it as a product.
Look at how long it took for Edison to turn electric-driven incandescence into a practical light bulb - and how rapidly that deployed once it was finally done. Or look at the several generations of automobiles between the first hand-built, otto-cycle engine driven rich-guy's toys and Ford's mass-produced models, or the several generations of steam engines before practical, standards-based, inexpensive railroad transportation was deployed.
If this proves practical and deploys I expect it in a lot less time than the above examples. But I DON'T expect it to already be deployed for years before the week the first published paper describing the fundamental breakthrough is published.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Then we can resurrect that sound fragment from an old video game I used to play (I forget the name), which would periodically threaten "I Hunger..."
I can see far more entertainment value in people's phones moaning "I Hunger" from their pockets instead of displaying a low-battery indicator. :D
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I saw no mention of the usual platinum catalyst, and the summary specifically disclaims the use of such in this method. Of course we all know how trustworthy TFS usually is, but I saw no mention of it in the abstract, either.
In any case, assuming the process is reversible, I suspect trying to run this sequence in reverse by applying power is even more inefficient than the well-known inefficiency of photosynthesis.
Hopefully some organic chemist with an institutional subscription to Nature Communications will chime in somewhere in the thread.
Fuel cells are quite a lot more efficient than ICEs where most of our ethanol ends up. Ken Caldeira seems to have forgotten that: http://thinkprogress.org/clima...
The Educational Institute of Engineering and Industrial Operations
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
That's great news for the sugarmotor!
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Charge is as much a measurement of quantity of electricity as volume is a measurements of a quantity of matter.
When we're defining 'quantity' in terms of mass in this context. Let's say we're looking at 1 cubic meter. How many kg is your matter? The quantity depends on what the matter consists of, it will change radically depending if the matter is air, water, sand, iron, or lead.
We're not arguing with you that amp-hours can be used as the equivalent of a gas gauge. What we're trying to tell you is that we can't actually compare this battery with other batteries in terms of energy capacity, IE amount of work available, without knowing an additional bit of knowledge like the voltage.
It's like I have a truck with a 400 mile range and I'm unwilling to replace it with any vehicle with less range. You, as the salesman keep telling me that it has a 20 gallon tank, but refuse to tell me the mpg. Sure, if you tell me that the only differences between Vehicle X and Y are than X has the 'standard' 10 gallon tank and Y has the 'extended' 20 gallon one, I can figure that Y has double the range. I still don't know what that actual range is going to be.
I don't read AC A human right
I saw no mention of the usual platinum catalyst, and the summary specifically disclaims the use of such in this method.
Look at the right edge of the diagram. You'll see an oval labeled Pt on the surface of the cathode, serving as the site of a reaction where hydrogen leaving the cell is reacted with atmospheric oxygen to form atmospheric water vapor - achieving the necessary hydrogen gradient to pump the electricity generation. (Alternatively, with the charging current pumping protons IN, the same catalyst would be cracking atmospheric water vapor to provide more, to feed the catalyst's hydrogen affinity and thus the cell, leaving the oxygen to fly away.)
Note that the platinum is not involved in the internal reactions, which are entirely mediated by the 13 enzymes. It's just a handy way to provide a hydrogen source/sink at a roughly fixed concentration, to dump protons during discharge and provide them for charge.
Now even if it IS reversable, perhaps the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and/or water vapor might be a limit on charging rate, leading to the preferred method of "recharge" being injecting the cell with more pure maltodextrin solution of the appropriate strength and running it as a primary fuel cell rather than a rechargable fuel-cell-battery system. But if it makes it past the "valley of death" into production we should know in a few years.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The Educational Institute of Engineering and Industrial Operations
Isn't that where Old McDonald had a farm?
No left turn unstoned.
Any attempt to use food as power resource is doomed to failure.
See the example in Brazil, we extensively use ethanol from sugar cane to fuel cars, more than 95% of cars produced in Brazil can use any mixture of ethanol and gasoline.
Since Brazil also uses sugar cane to produce sugar, and the global demand for food is increasing. Most producers of sugar cane prefer to sell their production to sugar mills, instead of to ethanol plants, raising substantially the ethanol price at a rate that it's not economically viable to use ethanol to replace gasoline.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
I love that game!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The mpg, in to continue the car analogy, would be comparable to whatever the power demands were for the application you needed the electricity for. Higher power demand would be, in this case, comparable to a worse mpg rating.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'd like to power my rotory phone using sugar!
Eventually, of course, this leads to robots powered by beer.
Busted again!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Look at the right edge of the diagram. You'll see an oval labeled Pt on the surface of the cathode...
Oh right. It was a Slashdot summary. My bad.
But if it makes it past the "valley of death" into production we should know in a few years.
I find it hard to imagine an achievable form factor in which it would be useful. It's the smallest form factors that needs the highest energy densities, and specifically small, flat, nearly air sealed form factors that people care about the most. It's not mechanically suitable for such applications.
The only places it might succeed are the unoccupied or nearly unoccupied large scale niches, like whole-house energy storage and electric vehicles, and both of those are severely uphill marketing battles, both to potential customers and to potential sources of development funding.
"Valley of death." Very apt description.
I find it hard to imagine an achievable form factor in which it would be useful. It's the smallest form factors that needs the highest energy densities, and specifically small, flat, nearly air sealed form factors that people care about the most. It's not mechanically suitable for such applications.
Given the energy and power desity it doesn't have to be very large to be very useful. The downside is thaat it needs access to air.
So one place that comes to mind immediately is laptops. Not quite as a drop-in replacement for a sealed unit: Laptops already have forced-air cooling. You'd just pass the forced air past the membranes of the cell. This would give it access to far more atmospheric CO2 and water vapor than depending on local air currents. I wouldn't be surprised if that makes it practical.
Another is electric cars. High energy and power density translatie to low powerplant weight, and from there to more payload, better mileage, etc. There's lot of access to air amd plenty of room for the plumging. It's refuelable with a cheap, non-toxic, liquid, so you get plug-in hybrid versatility with very little more equipment than a pure electric rechargable.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way